The resources God has given us to live a thriving life are His Word, Spirit, and People.
Read God’s Word:
1 Peter 1-5
Act 3: God’s New Covenant People
Scene 4: Christ’s Church: God’s People Advance the Kingdom
Background Information: 1 Peter 1-5
Thirty years after Jesus’s death and resurrection, Peter wrote his letters to the persecuted churches scattered across modern-day Turkey. He wrote from prison in Rome right around the time that Nero’s great persecution was breaking out against the church. Tradition has it that Peter was crucified upside down at his own request. He did not think himself worthy to die in the same manner as the Lord Jesus. This is quite a change from the overly confident younger man who had denied Christ all those decades earlier. If you want to know how to suffer well, drink deep of Peter’s letter. Peter’s challenge to them is his challenge to us: do not be surprised at the painful trials you are experiencing; this is not strange, this is to be expected. To embrace this challenge, our focus must shift from our suffering to our Savior. He has given us new birth into a living hope. We have been given an inheritance that cannot perish, spoil, or fade. We are shielded by God’s power no matter what comes our way. Therefore, we can greatly rejoice even though now, for the short time that is our natural lives, we may suffer through many trials. These trials serve a greater purpose; they are refining us and will turn into praise, glory, and honor at the end of this present age. With this foundational focus in place, Peter turns our attention to proactive training. Training for godliness always begins in the mind and then moves to our outward actions. We are to live as strangers, exiles in the world. We are a chosen people, a people belonging to God, but we no longer belong to this world. This doesn’t mean we are to live avoiding contact with the world, but we are to live in a way that draws others to become citizens of heaven. Peter gives Christ as the supreme example of how to suffer well. We are to look at him and follow in his steps. He suffered without sin; he suffered trusting himself fully to his father. Look at Jesus, learn from him, model your life after him, but be sure you understand, he is no mere role model; he is the Savior. Scripture never presents Jesus as an example to follow without adding that he is much more than that. Peter tells us to follow in the Lord’s footsteps, but he makes sure we understand that we do this because he went where we cannot go. We can take up our own cross, but we cannot do what he did on that tree. He bore our sins on the cross. It is by his wounds that we have been healed. We can only live lives worthy of him, becoming like him, because his life given for us has changed ours forever. This change doesn’t begin in eternity; it begins now.
“Though you have not seen him, you love him; though not seeing him now, you believe in him, and you rejoice with inexpressible and glorious joy, because you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls.”
1 Peter 1:8,9
Pray:
Praise God for…
Thank God for…
Confess your sins to God
Pray for Persians in Iran who face war, drought, economic hardship, and government oppression-that they would find hope in the One who is the living water and the bread of life.
Ask God for… (what else concerns you?)
Reflect:
Write down one passage of scripture that stood out to you today.
Write down why this passage stood out to you.
Engage Community:
Text or call someone now and tell them…
– What you are praying for.
– What stood out from God’s word today.